A parliamentary group from the Portuguese Communist Party has questioned the government about "the impact of successive budget cuts" on the Algarve’s public hospitals.
A delegation visited Portimão Hospital, one of the hospitals which along with Faro and Lagos units make up the Centro Hospitalar do Algarve (CHA) and has produced a series of questions in a damning report.
The meeting with the CHA board in December last year served to highlight "problems relating to chronic underfunding and the lack of health professionals."
"Insufficient public funding for the CHA hospitals due to the imposition of Troika inspired spending cuts alongside government policy to reduce funding in the National Health Service generally has stopped some planned investments going ahead," say the MPs Paula Santos, Carla Cruz and Paul Sá.
There also has been a ban on the purchase of essential equipment needed for supplementary diagnostic tests, therapeutic equipment in radiology and for the upgrading of MRI scanning equipment., "to meet the needs of the Algarve population we would need an increase of 15% to 20% in funds from the state budget transferred to the Algarve’s hospitals," reported the team.
"As for human resources there is a shortage of doctors, nurses and operating assistants, overall a lack of 80 nurses and 60 assistants. The shortage of doctors is very significant in obstetrics, pediatrics, anesthetics, ophthalmology and orthopedics," according to the document that now has been sent to the government.
The team reminds the government that the Algarve Hospital Group "is nearly 300km away from other health facilities and needs to be self-sufficient in staff and equipment."
"Due to the shortage of doctors the hospitals have resorted to hiring temps from employment agencies, especially to work in emergency services, although it is recognised that this is not the right solution," reads the report.
The report questions the Health Ministry on its findings that successive budget cuts have constrained the operation of these hospitals and it wants to know what measures the government intends to take to "finally resolve the huge shortage of health professionals in the Algarve’s hospitals, the reasons for not authorising the hiring of permanent nurses and assistants, and finally if the government is to recruit suitable specialist doctors that are currently lacking.”
